Linking Pin Sonnet

The Linking Pin Sonnet was created by Professor Joseph S. Spence, Goodwill Ambassador and creator of the Epulaeryu poetry form.

In the author’s own words: The concept is primarily based on the principles of leadership in accomplishing a mission or task in an organization. This comes by strengthening the organizational echelons at each level, by connecting each element with a linking pin of leadership for strength, thus obtaining maximum productivity in the completion of its goal. One should be able to visualize each linking pin connecting to the next to ensure strength and safety in moving every adjoining part to reach its maximum potential in mission accomplishment. Additionally, the linking pin sonnet, resonates as two lovers on the same sheet of music linking with each other, singing the same song, and moving in the same direction while strengthening each other, for betterment by overcoming obstacles and strengthening their goals with success and victory as one.

I have to admit, I not overly fond of sonnets in general, but I found this one to be both interesting and challenging. It consists of 14 lines, as all sonnets do, but the end of each line links with the beginning of the next line. Each line has eight to eleven syllables, but the rhyme scheme will depend on what kind of sonnet you’re writing: Petrarchan (or Italian) – abba, abba, cdecde; Shakespearean (or English) – abab, cdcd, efef, gg; or Spenserian – abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee.

I like the fact we’re given choices, both in the rhyme scheme and the number of syllables in the lines. I had more fun than I expected to with this form. I followed the Shakespearean style, and I even remembered to carry the link between the stanzas.


Storm Journey

I travelled beneath a lowered sky
Sky in which dark clouds begin to form
Form filled with the grey to quantify
Quantify the coming of the storm.

Storm is hesitating in the air
Air that has become heavy and chill
Chill with a promise, so have a care
Care that needs to be taken until

Until the storm has passed overhead
Overhead where the lightning flashes
Flashes as thunder fills us with dread
Dread that can burn brave souls to ashes

Ashes swept away by pounding rain
Rain that passes, but will come again.



To learn more about this amazing poet, try one of these links:
Atunis Poetry
African American Literature Book Club 

My post about the Epilaeryu  

Flamenca Poetry Form

The flamenca is another Spanish form, although not as complicated as the Ovillejo. This form is written in quatrains (five-line stanzas) with a staccato rhythm reminiscent of the flamenco dance. It can be any number of verses, constructed with a 6–6–5–6–6 syllable count. It does not rhyme, but lines 2 and 5 should share assonance.

Assonance isn’t precisely a rhyme, it is the repetition of the same or similar vowel sounds within words, phrases, or sentences.

Schematic:

x x x x x x
x x x x x x (assonance)
x x x x x
x x x x x x
x x x x x x (assonance)

I’m not sure I mastered the art of assonance, but I think my example works anyway.


Dancer

arms raised above the head
wrists loose, hands at rest
the music begins
staccato rhythm starts
feet move as though possessed

head held high showing pride
you move with fluid grace
dance the flamenco
desire comes alive
as feet keep up the pace

Treochair Poetry Form

I’ve been reading a lot of books set in Ireland lately, so it just seemed natural to pick an Irish poetry form this week.

The Treochair seems to be a simple form at first, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to write. It can have as few or as many tercets (three-line stanzas) as you wish. There are three syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and seven in the third. The first and third lines rhyme.

Now, if you want to get really traditional about it, you should use as much alliteration as you can manage. It can also contain cywddydd (harmony of sound) and dunadh (where the beginning and ending of the poem have the same word). To be honest, I was so concerned about getting the rhyme and syllable count right that the rest completely slipped my mind.

Not much of a schematic for you, but here it is:

xxa
xxxxxxb
xxxxxxa

xxc
xxxxxxd
xxxxxxc

… and so forth

And here’s my example:


My Winter Soul

Shuttered eyes;
I escape into dreamtime
even though it is unwise

to hide from
the world instead of facing
what I fear, what makes me numb.

When I wake,
dissatisfaction still there
nothing solved, head and heart ache

for something
I cannot see or touch or feel –
my winter soul, never spring

Eternity’s Desire

In 2009 I participated in the Writer’s Digest PAD Challenge – writing a poem a day from prompts they provided for the 30 days of April. What is it with me and these 30 day challenges, eh?

Anyway, one of the prompts we were given was to write a Sestina. Well, I’d never heard of this form before, and quite frankly, when I looked at it I wished I never had. There’s no rhyme, no syllable count, but there is a strict pattern to it. But I persevered and it set me on the path of my love of forms.

The Sestina was invented by a French troubadour named Arnaut Daniel. The troubadours first appeared in southern France in the twelfth century. Their name is extracted from the verb trobar, meaning "to invent or compose verse." They were famous, celebrated, much in fashion, and eventually very influential on the European poetry of the next few centuries. They sang - their poems were always accompanied by music - for French nobles such as the Duke of Aquitaine and the Count of Poitiers, and competed with one another to produce the wittiest, most elaborate, most difficult styles.

The Sestina was one of several forms in the complex, elaborate, and difficult closed style called trobar clus. It consists of 39 lines divided into 6 sestets and one triplet, called the envoi. It is normally unrhymed - instead, the six end words of the first stanza are picked up and reused as the end words of the following stanzas in a specific order. In the envoi, one end word is buried in each line, and one is at the end of each line.

Lines may be of any length, although their length is usually consistent in a single poem. The six words that end each of the lines of the first stanza are repeated in a different order at the end of lines in each of the subsequent five stanzas. The particular pattern is given below. (This kind of recurrent pattern is "lexical repetition".)

The pattern of word repetition is as follows, where the words that end the lines of the first sestet are represented by the numbers "1 2 3 4 5 6":

1 2 3 4 5 6 - End words of lines in first sestet.
6 1 5 2 4 3 - End words of lines in second sestet.
3 6 4 1 2 5 - End words of lines in third sestet.
5 3 2 6 1 4 - End words of lines in fourth sestet.
4 5 1 3 6 2 - End words of lines in fifth sestet.
2 4 6 5 3 1 - End words of lines in sixth sestet.
Three line envoi using end words in the middle and end of each line

Possible formats for the envoi are:
1-2, 3-4, 5-6
1-4, 2-5, 3-6
6-2, 1-4, 5-3
or 6-5, 2-4, 3-1

And here’s the example I wrote to help you understand the form. This is only the fourth Sestina I’ve ever written, but I think I’m getting the hang of it. :-)

The words I used are:
1 Eternity 2 Desire 3 Moon 4 Lies 5 Regret 6 Ashes


Eternity’s Desire

You pledged me an eternity
Your eyes full of desire
But in the light of the full moon
I could see your words were lies
Spoken without regret
And our love turned to ashes

In my mouth, the taste of ashes
When I think of you and eternity
And if I have any regret
It’s the wasted desire
I felt for the lies
Spoken under the moon

I bathe in the light of the moon
As the world around me turns to ashes
And I feel like I’m buried in lies
That have built up over an eternity
Disguised as eternal desire
That does nothing but fill me with regret

A life that’s filled with regret
Stays in the shadow of the moon.
Knowing nothing of desire
The soul is covered in ashes
As the winding of eternity
Conceals humanity’s lies

I feel surrounded by your lies
But believe you’ll be the one to regret
Missing your chance at eternity
Blessed by the sanctified moon.
Instead you’ll have nothing but ashes
Where once there was desire

I will find a new desire
One unsullied by lies
Like the phoenix rise from the ashes
With nothing left to regret
And dance in the light of the moon
As I take my place in eternity

I live eternity with my heart’s desire
A blessed moon erasing lies
And all regrets are burned to ashes.

Renovation in the Time of Covid

This week would have been the week my poetry group met so we could share some poetry. Unfortunately, Ontario is still on lock down so we couldn’t meet in person. There was a zoom meeting, which I wasn’t able to participate in because I can’t get the camera in my lap top to work. Guess I did too good a job disabling it when I set this computer up.

Anyway, I’m kind of bummed I couldn’t because the “poemwork” for the month was a challenge to write a Xenolith. What’s a Xenolith you ask? It’s a poetry form I created several years ago. It has 15 lines – 7 of them have 12 syllables per line, 8 of them have 8 syllables per line. You can separate the 7 lines from the 8 lines and have two, separate, shorter poems, but put them together and you have a poem within a poem, or a Xenolith.

You can find a longer explanation about it  HERE or you can do a Google search for Xenolith poetry form. How cool is that that it’s feature on other poetry sites? To be honest, I think my original Xenolith was a little smoother, but after much tweaking, this one isn’t bad.

And yes, those rocks below are Xenoliths - a rock within another rock (which is where I got the idea for the poetry form from).

Renovation in the Time of Covid

Our kitchen is a mess and needs to be redone
A subtle thing, how it began
Plans were made, deposit down, this should be real fun
A global challenge was not planned
Empty cupboards, empty shelves, fill bins by the ton
Panic shopping, growing unease
With shortages, stay at home please
Some days we think the contractor will never come
The schools all close, your business too
Wear a mask and stand in a queue
Boxes fill our living room – it’s no longer fun
Vaccines arrive, still numbers rise
Out of stock and back orders leave us rather stunned
This lock down will save many lives
It looks as though our kitchen never will be done


12 syllable mono rhyme – the renovation

Our kitchen is a mess and needs to be redone
Plans were made, deposit down, this should be real fun
Empty cupboards, empty shelves, fill bins by the ton
Some days we think the contractor will never come
Boxes fill our living room – it’s no longer fun
Out of stock and back orders leave us rather stunned
It looks as though our kitchen never will be done

8 syllable rhyming couplets – the Covid

A subtle thing, how it began
A global challenge was not planned
Panic shopping, growing unease
With shortages, stay at home please
The schools all close, your business too
Wear a mask and stand in a queue
Vaccines arrive, still numbers rise
This lock down will save many lives.

Urjuzah Poetry Form

It’s been a while since I’ve done a form here so I think we’re due, don’t you?

The Urjuza is an Arabic verse form, consisting of rhyming couplets done in the rajaz metre. Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it? Except, the rajaz metre is made with lines that are 24 syllables long, divided into two groups of 12 syllables with a caesura, or break, between them.

The verse focuses more on the details of content leaving the poem "devoid of stylistic elegance and poetic beauty". The poem served several functions, for example camel drivers’ songs (known as al-ḥidā ), was utilized for verbal display, and other types of didactic and even obscene poetry.

The Urjuza is:
Written in any number of couplets.
Monorhymed or written in rhymed couplets - either aa aa aa etc. or aa bb cc etc .
Written in rajaz meter, which calls for lines of 24 syllables with a caesura at 12 syllables

Once of the sources I checked referenced the UK band, Camel (70s progressive rock), who made an album called Rajaz. They had a very eloquent description of the Rajaz metre:

The music of poets once carried caravans across the great deserts.

Sung in a simple metre of the animal's footsteps, it transfixed weary travellers on their sole objective... journey's end.

The poetry is called 'rajaz'. It is the rhythm of the camel.

You can check out their Rajaz site HERE.

I freely admit my example isn’t a brand new one, I wrote it many years ago. I recall enjoying writing in this form though, I mean other than having to come up with 24 syllables per line all I had to worry about was the rhyming of the couplets.

Unfortunately, my HTML skills have kind of atrophied from lack of use and I was not able to indent the second part of each line without changing the html coding for the whole blog, and I didn’t think it was worth the trouble for one poem. So you’ll have to use your imaginations for the formatting. Basically, the second part of each line should be indented. :-D

A desert wind blows across the skin of my dreams,
winding its way across dunes of lost words and deeds.
A desert sun sets fire to my imagination,
burning away reality until it bleeds.

A desert day can burn itself into your mind,
until you no longer see what the pen has wrought.
A desert rain can sweep the landscape of changes,
dark words scudding across the sky in clouds of thought.

A desert night will cool the burning of the soul,
with sibilant whispers of things that could not be.
A desert night can rain down stars of poetry
sweeping the landscape in a storm you cannot see.

Iroha Mokigusari

Yowsa! This form was a bit of a challenge. But then I kind of like a challenge.

Some of my favorite forms are the Japanese ones. Even though they usually have a strict 5/7 syllable count, at least you don’t have to worry about rhymes. All you need for most of them is a good thesaurus that includes the number of syllables in a word. :-)

The Iroha Mokigusari is an ancient Japanese form and seeing as I can neither read nor write Japanese I have to trust the western interpretation of it. It’s described as a perfect pangram, meaning it contains each character of the Japanese syllabary once only.

For our purposes, its best described as a Japanese alphabet poem. It differs from our western alphabet poems (in which each line starts with a letter of the alphabet starting with A and continuing in descending order) in that it follows the normal 5/7 pattern of syllables, and the first and last letter of each line follow the alphabet.

The structure looks like this:

axxxb
cxxxxxd
exxxf
gxxxxxh
ixxxj
and so on…

One example I found of this form was called Nonsense, a fitting title because it’s almost impossible to write a poem under these restrictions that makes sense.

My attempt has no title.

A question that’s dumb,
Can you fly like a buzzard?
Even without proof,
Given your innate hutzpah,
I believe in Raj –
Knew you were always playful,
Maybe brave even.
Only watch for a breakup –
Quicker than ever,
Starlight is shining at night
Under an improv
Winter moon; like a phoenix
You shine like glitz.

Blackout Poetry

I’ve known about blackout poetry for a few years, but for some reason I never got around to trying it.

When I first considered it for the form of the month I thought it would be really easy, maybe even a little fun. Basically, to do a blackout poem you take a page of prose, pick out a few key words, and then black everything else out.

With the holiday season closing in fast, I decided to use a page from one of my favourite Christmas stories, the Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry. I actually started out with two pages. The first page I used a yellow highlighter to highlight words that caught my eye. Then I reversed it on the second page, blacking out everything but the words I highlighted on the first page. And this is what I came up with:

It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be, especially the blacking out part. I went through seven copies before I got it right. LOL

Meanwhile, here’s another couple of examples of what you can do with blackout poetry:

Smore - Blackout Poetry Challenge

Scholastic Blackout Poetry

For more examples and a better explanation, check these links:

Power Poetry  - 5 Tips For Creating Blackout Poetry
Medium - Creative Deconstruction For Writers: How to Write a Blackout Poem

Dinggedicht

This is exciting for me. It’s not often I come across a new form these days but during a somewhat fruitless search for a different form I stumbled across this one. The Dinggedicht is a German form that means literally: poem of things. Points if you’re able to pronounce it. LOL

It’s similar to the Ekphrasis, which is a poem based on another work of art, but in this case it’s the mood, or inner being of the object that’s being written about. And it is not restricted to works of art, the poem is formed by observation of images in the world around you, expressed symbolically; the subject can be drawn from everyday life or current events.

You’d think, considering there’s no rhyme or syllable count, this would be any easy poem to craft. It’s not. It can be very difficult to capture the mood or inner essence of something, which made settling on a subject even more difficult. I’m hoping the subject of my poem would have been obvious even without the title.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Global Warming
The wind scatters your denials
flinging them back at you
ripping your objections up by the roots
only to crush them into splinters.

The siren call of the sea
becomes strident, irritated,
hurling epithets as it slams the shore,
not stopping there but crawling inward
to reclaim the already saturated land
while ignoring the parched earth elsewhere.
The land shudders, heaves, rips apart -
reconfigures itself with no rhyme nor reason.

Fueled by the hot, dry wind
the inferno devours everything in its path
scouring the surface
abrading the skin of the land
until all that is left is ash.

Deny it though you may
the truth is out there
staring you in the face.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

If you’d like to learn more about the Dinggedicht I suggest one of the following links:
Ada's Poetry Alcove
The Collagist
All Poetry

Terzanelle

This form is a little ... shall we say ... challenging. It was invented by Lewis Turco in 1965, and for those of somewhat familiar with poetry forms, it combines the villanelle’s refrain with the terza rima’s end line patterning. What truly makes it challenging is the number rules for it:

1. It is a fixed form of 19 lines - five triplets and a quatrain.
2. The body is comprised of tercets that each refrain the second line of the preceding tercet for its third line.
3. The first line of each of these tercets is rhymed with its refrained line.
4. The first and third lines of the opening tercet are refrained as the second and fourth lines of the closing quatrain.
5. The closing quatrain refrains the second line of the last tercet as its third line and rhymes its first line with that refrain.
6. Lines may be in any length or meter within reason.
7. Terzanelles may be written on any subject.

Got that now? There’ll be a test later. ;-)


Dragonflight

The wind is sighing through the trees,
The warmth of summer shimmers ‘round;
Magic‘s found in days like these.

A forest pool, a wild playground,
Where water lilies are abloom,
The warmth of summer shimmers ‘round.

A wafting scent of rare perfume;
The air is soft with ambient light
Where water lilies are abloom.

Who directs your soaring flight,
Free spirit wandering where it will.
The air is soft with ambient light.

You dip and weave and fly with skill -
I’d follow if I only could,
Free spirit wandering where it will

I watch you flitter through the wood;
The wind is sighing through the trees.
I’d follow if I only could -
Magic is found in days like these.


If you’d like to learn more about the Terzanelle, try one of the following links:
Shadow Poetry 
Writer's Digest 
The Poet's Garret  
Popular Poetry Forms 

If you give it a try, I’d love to see what you come up with. If you email it to me at carolrward(at)gmail(dot)com, I’ll post it here next Wednesday. And if you don’t, then you’re going to be stuck reading a couple of poems that survived junior high school.

How’s that for incentive? :-D

The Blitz Poetry Form

Even if you’re not into poetry, you really need to give The Blitz a try. It’s the most fun you’ll ever have with a poetry form.

The form was invented by Robert Keim. The lines are super short - just a couple of words each. There’s no punctuation and it doesn’t rhyme. The first two lines both start with the same word. Lines 3 and 4 begin with the last word of line 2. Lines 5 and 6 start with the last word of line 4, and so on until you’ve written 48 lines. Line 49 is the last word of line 48, and line 50 is the last word of line 47. The title is only three words - the first word from the 3rd line joined to the first word from the 47th line by a preposition.

When writing a Blitz poem, it helps if you write it as quickly as possible. It’s a lot like one of those word association tests psychiatrists are reported to use, only faster. Give it a try, I guarantee you’ll have lots of fun.


Red With Clouds

Rose in bloom
Rose red
Red queen
Red and white
White as snow
White wine
Wine in a glass
Wine and cheese
Cheese whiz
Cheese log
Log on
Log off
Off and on
Off and running
Running amok
Running late
Late for work
Late in life
Life mate
Life and death
Death comes
Death mask
Mask your feelings
Mask the man
Man and woman
Man alive
Alive and dead
Alive for now
Now and then
Now and again
Again with this
Again with that
This and that
This and the other
Other than that
Other wise
Wise man
Wise woman
Woman rights
Woman power
Power up
Power down
Down town
Down below
Below zero
Below the clouds
Clouds of white
Clouds of blue
Blue
White

Paradelle

This being the first Wednesday of the month, it’s time for a form!

After much consideration, I chose the Paradelle. This form was invented by Billy Collins (who was the U.S. Poet Laureate at the time) as a parody of the Villanelle. He did it as a joke, claiming it was one of the more demanding French forms. The joke was on him when people took him seriously and began writing their own Paradelles.

This form has four stanzas with six lines each. The first three stanzas have the following format: lines 1 and 2 are the same; lines 3 and 4 are the same; but lines 5 and 6 must contain all the words from the previous lines, using each word only once. And just to make things interesting, the fourth stanza uses all of the words from the previous stanzas, and again uses each word only once. Got that now?

You’d think with all that repetition this would be an easy form, but it’s not. The last two lines of each stanza were bad, but nothing compared to the final stanza. Trying to fit all the words from the previous stanza without leaving any of them out is pretty tricky. If anyone out there would like a poetry challenge, I highly recommend the Paradelle.

And I unashamedly admit that I did not create a new poem as an example, this is the one from my original poetry post.


Vampire Moon

Red moon in the sky, swollen and full
Red moon in the sky, swollen and full
Bathing the world in its ghostly light
Bathing the world in its ghostly light
Swollen in red, the full ghostly world
Bathing the moon and sky in its light

The time has come to embrace the night
The time has come to embrace the night
Rise, take your place in the mortal realm
Rise, take your place in the mortal realm
Take your place in the night rise, mortal.
Embrace the realm, the time has come to.

Soft velvet night of the vampire moon
Soft velvet night of the vampire moon
Awaits you with your heart’s desire
Awaits you with your heart’s desire
Velvet vampire desire. Soft night,
Your heart’s moon awaits with you.

In your sky, has the velvet moon come?
The night awaits with your place in
the world, swollen and full of the light.
You, bathing in its soft ghostly night.
Rise, heart’s desire, take the mortal realm;
Time to embrace the red vampire moon.


If you’d like to learn more about the Paradelle, and maybe even try one for yourself, check out one of the following links:

Shadow Poetry - Paradelle
Writer's Digest - Poetic Asides
Poets Online Archive

The Flarf

Yeah, I know it’s not the first Wednesday of the month, but I’m sharing a form with you anyway, just because I can. :-D

The Flarf is the brain child of Gary Sullivan, and started out as a scam on a contest sponsored by the Poetry.com site. I’m sure he was as surprised as anyone when it became a whole movement.

What makes a Flarf both fun and easy is the fact you take your raw material from the internet, specifically a Google search. Simply use two unrelated terms, like "anarchy + tuna melt" or "beautiful + corpse" and piece together your poem by cutting and pasting from the search results page.

You can also write a Flarf based on your Twitter or Facebook feeds, but I chose the more traditional Google search. The terms I used were "kitten + apocalypse".


Kitten Apocalypse

The world will end by kittens
and I want to explain how this will happen
in a lot of depth but
I have not made the video!

Mass resurrection
brings all dead party
and raid members back to life.
Beware.. The kittens have gone crazy!
To me, they are truly evil.

Do you see kittens staring at you?
Do they look sinister/evil!?
Avoid the radioactive zombie kittens
in a post apocalyptic nightmare!
Zombies, don't mess with angry kittens!

Kittens are the new ninjas.
Check out this vicious cat killing spree!
Meet Hiromi, the shy artist;
her cat Vince, who has a secret;
her best friend Kitty with all the visions

It's the kitten apocalypse! ..
. Animated zombie kittens!
Zombie kittens are attacking!
Why the hell are you still reading?

Apocalypse warning,
kittens involved.
If you see these,
you're probably screwed.

No one suspected
the zombie apocalypse
would look so cute.


If you’d like to learn more about the Flarf, try one of these links:

Poets.org - A Brief Guide to Flarf Poetry
The Truth About Lies - How to Write a Flarf

And since the quiz I included with the original post (many years ago) is no longer valid, I thought I'd include a short video to help illustrate my poem. :-)